Sudbourne / Sudburne / Sudborne

Parker (1855) reports a Norman font "with a square bowl on legs" in this church. The 9 July 1872 Oxford Meeting of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology reports on a visit to Sudbourne All Saints': "The font is Norman, the bowl supported by four shafts, two of which are modern; the whole has been recut." The Antiquary (July 27, 1872. p. 179) mentions "the curious, plain, and massive Norman font, the bowl carried upon four round shafts […] The Norman font has been rather chiselled about since he [Mr. Phipson] saw it twenty years ago" [NB: Mr. Phipson was the leader of the group from the Suffolk Institute of Archaelogy visiting the church; the re-tooling or re-cutting of the font must have therefore taken place in the 1850s]. Described and illustrated in Knott (2008): "The font is like a ripe cheese - the base is clearly modern, and Mortlock says that the shafts are, too." The Sudbourne Parish Council page [http://www.onesuffolk.co.uk/SudbournePC/Church/] [accessed 17 March 2009] reports a Norman font in the west end of the nave. The basin is actually tub-shaped, rounded at the top and sides, but has a square frame at the angles and bottom, a shape that appears on some fonts of the period and that looks like an added frame on the rounded basin.